Nosemonkey's EUtopia

Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you the dangers of blogging and the benefits of a blogging pseudonym: I currently appear on the first page of results for a Google search for “twat”. Make of that what you will, but they do say that Google knows all…

A couple of days ago the government narrowly saw its piss-poor ID cards bill pass in the House of Commons.

One of the ongoing claims for the intrusive little plastic bastards is that they’d help cut down on illegal immigration. Because – you know – illegal immigrants would all be asked very nicely to register for the sodding things like the rest of us and then we’d be able to nab them while they’re off their guard. Or they’d have “illegal” stamped across the front of their official state-issued ID. Or something.

The only surprising thing is that they didn’t come up with this load of made-up statistical nonsense at the start of the week, happily drumming up another scare just in time for the vote (as they have done with most pieces of anti-terrorism legislation – tanks at Heathrow, warnings of planes flying into Canary Wharf etc.):

One in 100 could be illegal immigrant, says Home Office

To which the only reasonable response is surely:

One in 100 could be giant purple cyber-ants from the icy moon of Beltrazoid Alpha, says Nosemonkey

“A Home Office research document team used data gathered in the 2001 census and American methodology”

Because, you know, illegal immigrants are all going to tick the box marked “illegal immigrant” when their census forms come around, aren’t they?

“Tony McNulty, the Immigration Minister, said: ‘This is only an estimate and should not be seen as a definite figure. No government has ever been able to produce an accurate figure for the number of people who may be in the country illegally – by its very nature, it is impossible to quantify accurately, and that remains the case.'”

In other words, it’s a load of dangerous scaremongering bollocks, based on little more than speculation and conjecture, and designed purely to appeal to the Daily Mail / Sun reading crowd.

And look – surprise, surprise:

“Referring to the figures, Mr McNulty said the central estimate of 430,000 underlined the need for a ‘robust ID card scheme which will, among other benefits, help tackle illegal working and immigration’.”

To which the only response is:

“Referring to the figures, Nosemonkey said Mr McNulty’s patronisingly made-up bullshit underlined the need for the government to ‘shut the fuck up and stop talking bollocks’.”

In case Blair and McNulty and co haven’t realised, Britain is a sizable series of islands with a ridiculously large amount of coastline. Unless you build a sodding great big wall around the country they’re going to keep getting in. And none of them are going to register for ID. You morons.

Bunch of opportunistic bastards. This is precisely the sort of thing which leads to increased racial tension and suspicion. It’s irresponsible and cynical, designed merely to build support for a stupid and ill-considered policy in the face of condemnatory expert opinion – despite the fact that the policy in question will do precisely tit all to prevent the perceived problem.

If you have to resort to making up statistics to try and win an argument, you’ve already lost. Now give it the fuck up already.

(Oooh, I’m angry – did you notice?)

P.S. Got to love the analysis from Times Home Correspondant Richard Ford (my notes in square brackets/italics):

“We now know that there are an estimated [i.e. unreliable/made-up figure of] 430,000 people in the country illegally [i.e. without official sanction or status and actively avoiding government agents], but we don’t know their identity [because, erm, they have no official permission to be here and if we knew who they were they’d be arrested and deported]. If there were ID cards you would know who they are [because, erm, we’d issue ID cards to a bunch of people whose identites we don’t know, who have no official permission to be here, and who may or may not, in fact, actually exist]”

The Murdoch press, eh? Bastion of logic and good sense. Twats.

My latest lengthy post, up now at The Sharpener. Good, bad? Dunno – haven’t read it through properly yet…

Heads-up for all your Eurosceptics out there – Move to ‘sell’ EU to the French:

“A 40-point plan to explain Europe to the French has been submitted to the government… The proposals include a European stamp, a medal of honour, exams on Europe for schoolchildren and an EU sports event.”

Let the accusations of EU propaganda commence! (Although before you get too excited, it would appear that this report was not funded by the EU and its author, Michel Herbillon has never, as far as I am aware, held an EU office. Feel free to correct me if I’m wrong.)

Remember the nosepegs? Remember the “vote Labour because they’re better than the rest”? It was only a month and a half ago, but already our Polly, Guardian columnist and controversy-courter par excellance, is criticising the government that she encouraged others to vote for. Nice one, luv. (In fact, she probably started doing this the day after the election for all I know – I tend to try to avoid her usually mindless drivel.)

Some “highlights”:

“Under a government committed to cutting greenhouse gas emissions, UK emissions have increased by 3% since 1997 – and were up 1.3% last year alone…”

So, does that count as another broken Labour promise, Polly? Or should we whack on another nosepeg and ignore it, because they’re doing such sterling work in other areas – like the moronic bill outlawing criticising religions, the vastly expensive and pointless ID cards thing, the continuation of failing peacekeeping tactics in Iraq, the piss-poor execution of working family tax credits (which has forced one of my father’s patients to sell their sodding house to pay the government back for an error which was not their fault), the freedom of speech exclusion zone around the Houses of Parliament, etc. etc. etc.?

And here’s another telling admission:

“Our Kyoto targets will only be reached by the accident of the conversion from coal to gas before Labour’s time – and now we are burning more coal again.”

So, Polly, would that be the Tories who set up a reduction in pollution? The same Tories who laid the foundations for the (relatively) healthy economy of the last few years? The same Tories you urged everyone to vote against lest they introduce excessively totalitarian legislation (like – perhaps – ID, control orders, restriction of freedom of speech) or act against the interests of the poor (by – perhaps – giving them money to which they aren’t entitled, not warning them, waiting for them to spend it and then demanding it be repaid)?

Brilliant.